Device drivers act as an interface between the host operating system of a computer and attached hardware devices. The device drivers generally enable the operating system to communicate with internal and peripheral devices, such as keyboards, pointing devices, monitors, printers, network cards, storage devices, and the like. The device drivers typically receive input/output (I/O) or administrative commands from application programs or the host operating system. The device driver may pass these commands on to the associated hardware device, translate the commands into device-specific commands, or perform any prerequisite or subsequent management operations. Device drivers typically are provided by the hardware device manufacturer, although device drivers may be included in an operating system package.
On occasion, device drivers may encounter errors while managing devices. The device drivers may also receive error notifications from the associated hardware device or the host operating system. Such errors may be related to the host system, the device driver, the hardware device, or complex interactions between these components. Particularly in production scenarios, the root cause of an error often may not be obvious.
As a result, some existing systems implement a trace mechanism that records operational information that can aid operators, such as system developers or technicians, in troubleshooting device driver errors. However, in general, making a detailed record requires system resources, which can negatively impact system performance. As a result, available trace mechanisms sometimes are not enabled in the field.
In general, if insufficient recorded debugging information is available, the troubleshooting process may require that relatively detailed trace recording be temporarily enabled and that the problem be manually recreated. This process can be relatively time-consuming, may only be successful after an operator has been able to experimentally reproduce the precise sequence of steps that resulted in the error, and may not be permissible in some production scenarios.